Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is the worst film to ever be passed off as a documentary which this commentator has ever seen. Given his strong belief in evolution, many might attribute this disgust for Expelled to the fact that it promotes creationism under the pseudonym of “intelligent design”. Far from it, actually. Being a creationist merely entails being wrong, and being wrong is neither a sin nor a crime. In fact, even if creationism were correct, Expelled would still be highly odious, and that is because of the overall strategy used to argue for creationism. The pattern contained in the list of offenses should be easily discerned by almost anyone.

NOTE: Due to a self-imposed deadline, not every offense is explored or referenced as completely as it might be, especially those concerning biology. See the bibliography for other reviews.

The form of the film is propaganda. A good film would stick to the facts and examine the arguments. In Expelled, there is much extraneous content, especially in the form of old footage presented in black and white, which serves no purpose but to dictate the mood. Stein also feels free to ridicule his opponents. (Shermer; Rennie; Rennie and Mirsky; Mirsky).

Intelligent design is portrayed as a freedom issue, with Stein championing the the right of academics to believe in, advocate, and do research based on intelligent design and the right of reporter to report on intelligent design positively. He completely ignores that freedom of speech does not mean that anything goes and that being free to say something does not make it actually correct (Rennie; Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks). In reality, there are always consequences. Freedom of speech works both ways: when one exercises freedom of speech, what one says may legitimately be subject to criticism, as everyone who hears also is equally entitled to free speech. Furthermore, while a political or legal right to free speech may exist, no one is under any obligation to believe what someone else says, to aid that person in their quest to communicate their ideas, or to treat them favorably afterwards. E.g., someone might step up on a soapbox and invoke free speech to advocate killing all the whales, but no one has to like such a person or give him/her a job afterwards, and the whale-hater is not exempt from protest from nature-lovers.

Stein presents several claims of persecution of those who support intelligent design. These are all irrelevant to the case of whether intelligent design is actually correct. Furthermore, the stories of all the “bad boys” have been debunked (Shermer; Rennie; Rennie and Mirsky; Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks).

Stein lies about evolutionists, portraying them all as contemptible people (Rennie; Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks). This is highly unlikely for any group not defined morally.

Stein lies about about the alleged controversy about evolution (Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks). Every competent scientist knows that the controversy does not exist in the scientific community, something which scientists interviewed in the film note. The controversy is actually a convenient fiction invented by creationists.

Stein lies about the nature of intelligent design, including falsely claiming that intelligent design is not religious, is not thinly disguised creationism, and is science. This is despite Stein maintaining an overall religious tone of a paranoid variety (Rennie).

Stein lies about and misunderstands how science works. He pushes the notion that science is inherently atheistic and that scientists are engaged in a huge conspiracy in which all must adhere to a party line or face severe consequences. (Shermer; Rennie and Mirsky; Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks)

Stein falsely equates evolution and atheism, pushing Richard Dawkins and his militant atheism movement as representative of science over Eugenie C. Scott and the belief that religion and science are compatible, bringing nothing in the way of proof for disregarding the latter. Stein denies that there are religious evolutionists, despite what Eugenie C. Scott tells him (Shermer; Rennie; Rennie and Mirsky; Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks). (A list of material on compatibility between science and religion can be found in Appendix 1.) Stein papers over this discrepancy very badly. When one creationist interviewee is confronted with the fact that Catholics and liberal Protestants accept evolution as a legitimate belief, he claims the reason for this is “they’ll side with anyone against the Fundamentalists”, essentially claiming that Catholicism and liberal Protestantism are not “real” religions. Stein makes the dubious claim that evolution leads to atheism, no belief in an afterlife, no belief in free will, and no meaning of life; the fact that one or a few may have gone down such a path says next to nothing about the scientific community in general. Stein advocates a false dichotomy with atheism, evolution, eugenics, dehumanization, Nazism, communism, and evil on one side and religion, intelligent design, morality, freedom, American values, science, and good on the other. (Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks)

Stein repeatedly misunderstands and distorts what scientists interviewed are claiming.

Stein uses four intelligent design philosophers as sources for purportedly accurate information on evolution. (Keep in mind that philosophy and science have effectively parted company. Not to mention philosophers commenting on science are working outside their own field.)

Stein attacks science proponents over fighting intelligent design in the courts, conveniently ignoring that intelligent design proponents have been acting illegally in such a way that science proponents have needed to resort to lawsuits.

Stein makes the false claim that Mein Kampf (Hitler) and Nazism are based on Darwin, with the false implication that Darwin is responsible for the Holocaust (Shermer; Rennie; Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks). This should be obviously wrong to anyone who has read both Mein Kampf and Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (Darwin, On the Origin of Species) and The Descent of Man (Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex). Hitler lays out material of a “Social Darwinist” nature in chapters 4, 10, and 11 of volume 1 and chapter 2 of volume 2 of Mein Kampf. For him, race is all-important and determines everything about the individual. He believes that humanity is divided into a number of distinct races which can be linearly ranked, and that any hybridization between races creates offspring of an intermediate character and inevitably leads to disaster. Hitler draws moral consequences from these supposed facts, insisting on race purity, no matter what the dictates of Christianity or any other religion are. In such a system, the best humanity can hope for is a constant struggle to avoid all humanity ending up as one mid-level race; there is no hope that humanity can ever end up better than the best that are alive now. This system cannot explain how the highest race (assumed to be Germans/Aryans) and the lowest race (assumed to be the Jews) could come into existence, as they could not have been created through hybridization. In fact, there is nothing in this system which could explain speciation. Darwin, on the other hand, has no concept of race or of ranking beings linearly. For him, the individual—or rather the range of variations between individuals is everything. Variation, combined with natural and sexual selection, is what drives the engine of evolution. This mechanism allows for change other than regression to the mean; new species may arise, and future generations make be better endowed than those alive now. Darwin also draws no moral conclusions from evolution; evolution for him is a description of how nature works, not a prescription of how we should live. It takes a huge stretch of the imagination to derive Hitler’s views from Darwin’s. What makes it even more incredible is that Mein Kampf makes a grand total of zero mentions of Darwin and zero mentions of evolution. Completely ignored is the long history of anti-Semitism which preceded the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859—incidents Darwin could not possibly be responsible for. In Appendix 2 the reader will find a very long list of such incidents; it could have been even longer, but it was largely limited to ones listed with specific dates. Anyone who knows anything about Jewish history knows that Christian Europe has a very long history of anti-Semitism, one which it is only now trying to come to terms with. The Holocaust really only differs from preceding anti-Semitic incidents in scale, not substance. Trying to pin the blame on Darwin when there are so many other clearer precedents makes no sense.

Stein takes material out of context. Many clips of those being interviewed taken in isolation might well be taken to mean something rather different than what Stein would have us believe they mean. Furthermore, Stein deceptively quotes Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man (Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, chapter V). The part Stein quotes:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The part Stein does not quote:

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.

By simple omission the meaning of the quote is morally inverted (Rennie and Mirsky; Mirsky)

Stein obtained some of his interviews via deception (Shermer; Rennie and Mirsky).

In short, Expelled is filled with lies and half-truths, and lying and theft was used to create it. This is obviously intellectually improper; an argument based on a lie is worthless. Stein is also at risk of being sued for slander and copyright violation. But what is truly shocking is that Stein committed blatant transgressions of basic moral laws in Judaism, his professed religion, especially the prohibitions of moṣi’ shem ra‘ (lying) and lashon hara‘ (saying the truth in such a way as it can be interpreted wrongly, e.g., quoting out of context). The author of this review is under the impression that much of what Stein has done is generally regarded as morally offensive among non-Jews, too. If Darwin and evolution are so terrible, why does Stein not build a case on the facts? Why does he have to resort to dirty rhetorical tricks to make a case? If Stein cannot make a fair case for his accusations, why should anyone believe them at all?

Overall classification: Provocative pseudo-documentary.

Theological rating: F

Appendix 1: Resources on compatibility between science and religion:

Expelled Exposed (Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks), which also covers all manner of things wrong with Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Finding Darwin’s God (Miller)

Hertz’s Ḥummash (Hertz 194-95)

Not in Our Classrooms (Scott and Branch)

Science, Evolution, and Creationism ( 29-32)

The Clergy Letter Project (The Clergy Letter Project)

Appendix 2: Anti-Semitism before On the Origin of Species (Darwin, On the Origin of Species ):

Egypt (see Exodus)

‘Amaleq (see Exodus)

Bashan and Midhyan (see Deuteronomy)

Philistines (see Judges and Samuel)

Destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile (see Kings and Chronicles)

Zoroastrians (see Esther)

Syrian Greeks (see Maccabees)

New Testament (Carroll)

70: Destruction of the Second Temple (Ben-Sasson 303)

135-138: Hadrianic persecutions (Ben-Sasson 335)

455-485: Persecution of Jews in Persia under the reign of Yazdigar III and Piruz (Ben-Sasson 380)